Fail Hard. Fail Often.

No one likes failing. It blows. Immediately after the failure, one can find themselves wallowing in their own self pity. You keep playing over and over how you could have done things differently. In the end, for what can tend to be a lengthy amount of time, you find yourself trapped and living in the past contemplating the events to led up to the failure.

I've failed plenty of times in my young life. I was fired from my first job after college. I failed with my only two real intimate relationships. With each failure, for a moment, I find myself replaying over and over where I went wrong.

With my job, I know where I went wrong. I was in a sales position and mentally "checked out" of the role. When I started I had a fire under my ass. I believed in what we were doing and I was great at performing within my role. Once we were purchased and our roles were streamlined to a set tasks and responsibilities I found myself drifting. I felt as if I was being fenced in. I couldn't perform my duties the way I was used to, I needed to stick to a certain "playbook" and my mind couldn't handle it. I ended up doing things I shouldn't have done in order to maintain metrics they were looking for. I knew what I was doing was wrong. It eventually caught up with me and I was let go. The world stopped spinning. My ego tricked me into thinking I would never be fired.

Both of the relationships that I hold with any regard have both failed for me in the past. I still can't figure out where I went wrong (considering I went wrong anywhere at all). I was left by both of these individuals for other people. It hurt both times. You put so much trust into someone only to have that taken away.

What is important to take away from the failures is the learning moment. You must be able to look back and see what you did wrong, if anything, and make sure you don't do that again. With work, I knew right away where I went wrong and what I couldn't do in the future. I knew that tuning out would only result in the demise of your work and the work of the company. With relationships, I knew what qualities I wanted and didn't want in future lovers. I knew the ether I was putting forth in the relationships and what I did and did not get back.

One cannot remain stuck in the past. You must learn from your failures so you can build something great. We are playing the long game here; one failure shouldn't distract you from the end goal.

I invite you to fail. Fail hard and fail often. That way, you can succeed.